Advances in computing hardware and networking technologies, including the availability of high bandwidth, have urged the development of networked multimedia applications (online video games, streaming movies, etc.). Recently, there has been a significant interest towards the use of three-dimensional (3D) media such as 3D immersion and virtual reality video applications. Virtual reality videos are immersive videos mapped into a 3D geometry where a user can look around during playback using a virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD), which gives the viewer a sense of depth in every direction.
Despite recent advancements in virtual reality video technology, conventional systems face many challenges with delivering virtual reality content at high-quality levels. Virtual reality videos, which often include 360-degree videos, can be extremely bandwidth intensive and difficult to stream at acceptable quality levels. Accordingly, a major challenge with virtual reality video technology is how to efficiently transmit the large virtual reality video streams that require high bit rates to bandwidth-constrained devices, such as a wireless virtual reality HMD. For example, 4K video resolution is beginning to be viewed as a functional minimum resolution for current virtual reality video systems, while future virtual reality video systems anticipate 8K, 12K, and higher resolutions. Conventional systems, however, struggle to stream at acceptable quality levels even given the current resolutions.
In response to this issue, many conventional systems restrict streams to lower resolutions compared with their two-dimensional (2D) counterparts. Other conventional systems stream virtual reality video using a large range of predetermined resolutions for different portions of each virtual reality video. However, this requires a large storage capacity as each portion needs to be saved at multiple resolutions, a solution that is not feasible as resolutions for virtual reality videos increase. Further, some conventional systems disregard virtual reality video streaming standards, which inhibits streaming across multiple types of virtual reality video devices (e.g., HMDs). These and other problems exist with regard to conventional virtual reality systems.